Director Imada, usually so high and mighty, and the town mayor—just as full of swagger—were now practically trained lapdogs, trotting ahead with eager bows as they guided a young man who had stepped out of the lead car.
That young man was Seiji Fujiwara.
He wore a faint, indifferent smile. Even as an outsider, he carried himself like he'd just walked onto his own turf, his presence completely crushing both the director and the mayor. One casual glance was enough to make Director Imada break into a sycophantic grin.
From behind a second-floor corridor window, Mishima Tsukiki watched it all.
That effortless, absolute power—deciding life and death with a calm flick of the wrist—hit him like a sledgehammer, shattering the worldview he'd spent decades building.
He drifted back to his office in a daze, just in time to overhear Director Imada and that young junior doctor, Kobayashi, whispering excitedly in a corner.
"Kobayashi! Polish your resume again! Make sure you really highlight your loyalty and execution!"
"I already asked around—Genesis Group is expanding their medical team! This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance! If… if Fujiwara-san takes a liking to you, you'll be set for life!"
Director Imada lowered his voice, greed dripping from every word. "Hurry up and find out which hotel Fujiwara-san's secretary is staying at. We'll pay a visit tonight. Bring plenty of gifts. As long as we can latch onto this connection…"
What am I hesitating for?
Mishima Tsukiki felt like thunder had exploded inside his skull.
Humiliation and resentment surged up… and mixed with a hunger he'd never felt before.
Tanaka was right.
This was his last chance to change his life.
Even if he had to kneel, he had to grab it.
Mishima Tsukiki shot to his feet and, under his coworkers' stunned stares, strode out of the office.
He rushed into an empty stairwell, pulled out the business card from last night, and dialed the number.
The phone rang once before it was picked up.
"It's me. Mishima Tsukiki." His voice came out hoarse with nerves. "Nine-four-zero… Fujiwara-sensei, I… I want to see you."
…
?
It was still the same hot spring inn in town.
But Mishima Tsukiki's state of mind had been turned completely upside down.
"Fujiwara-sensei!"
When Megumi opened the door for him, he practically lunged inside on all fours, like he was terrified that if he lost even one second, the entrance to heaven would slam shut.
"Please!"
Mishima Tsukiki bent deeply at the waist, forcing his head as low as his body would allow.
"Please—please let me work at your hospital!"
"Welcome."
Seiji sat at the head seat, laughing as he reached out and helped Mishima up.
"Just… Fujiwara-san… I don't understand. Why me?"
Standing again, Mishima Tsukiki finally asked the question burning in his chest.
With Seiji Fujiwara's money, he could recruit any world-famous doctor he wanted. So why choose him—a disgraced exile, a penniless failure?
"You're underestimating yourself, Doctor Mishima." Seiji shook his head and glanced at Megumi beside him. "Megumi. The materials."
"Yes."
Megumi immediately pulled out a document from her briefcase and placed it on the table in front of Mishima Tsukiki.
"Take a look." Seiji gestured for him to pick it up.
"This is…?"
Mishima Tsukiki lifted it, confused.
It wasn't a contract or an agreement.
It was a photocopy of a research paper.
The pages were slightly yellowed with age.
The moment he saw the title, Mishima Tsukiki's pupils shrank violently.
It was the paper he had published in The Lancet ten years ago—"A Theoretical Model and Preliminary Practice for the Miniaturization and Biocompatibility Improvement of Ventricular Assist Devices."
He had poured countless sleepless nights into that paper. In his mind, it was the closest he'd ever come to his peak.
He'd believed it would open a new era… only for reality to crush him, forcing him to halt every follow-up study.
His deepest regret.
He'd assumed that paper would be buried forever.
And yet here it was, placed in front of him like this.
Mishima Tsukiki clutched the pages, emotions churning.
"Doctor Mishima, look at this too." Seiji turned a tablet so the screen faced him.
Mishima Tsukiki raised his eyes.
On the screen, a grand 3D blueprint labeled "New Tokyo International Medical Center" slowly rotated.
The sheer scale left him staring, slack-jawed.
But Seiji wasn't done.
With Megumi operating beside him, the blueprint zoomed in—sliding into the internal structure of the surgical building. A massive "Cardiovascular Surgery Center," spanning three entire floors and larger than Mishima's current hospital, sat bold in the middle of the screen.
Then files began appearing one after another.
[Letter of Appointment]
[Massive Budget Allocation]
[Full Authority Over Personnel]
Seiji still didn't say anything—he only looked at Mishima Tsukiki, as if to tell him: all of this will be yours.
Mishima Tsukiki stared at the documents, his blood roaring.
What kind of trust was this?
Handing him full control of an entire hospital department—no, more than that, handing him a kingdom.
Everything he'd ever wanted, every ambition and dream he'd ever had… suddenly felt possible in the face of that blueprint and those authorizations.
A man would die for someone who understands him.
No—this went beyond understanding.
This was rebirth. This was salvation. This was divine favor.
Mishima Tsukiki stood again and bowed ninety degrees to Seiji. His whole body trembled with excitement, his voice rough and feverish.
"I—I, Mishima Tsukiki, swear I'll do everything I can to repay your kindness!"
"Good." Seiji stood with a smile and patted his shoulder.
Two days later, in a marginalized lab at Kyoto University.
Shiraishi Rina—an outstanding young scholar in Japan's immunology world—sat hollow-eyed in front of her computer, looking like she hadn't slept in days.
On the screen was her mentor—Professor Ueda—speaking confidently at an international medical summit, passionately presenting a "breakthrough theory" on "induced immune cell regeneration."
And every single word of it—every data model—came from her research.
But what could she do?
She had no background. And she was a woman.
In that situation, having talent only made people hate her more.
Even her mentor treated her like a tool, harvesting her work for his own reputation.
Just as she was sinking into despair, someone knocked on the lab door.
"Who is it?" Shiraishi Rina asked without turning around.
The only answer was heavy footsteps.
"Who!?"
She whipped around—and saw a girl in a business suit walking in with a polite smile.
"Miss Shiraishi, right?"
Megumi smiled, setting two folders in front of her. "I'm from Genesis Medical. Heard of it? After Tohto Medical went bankrupt, it was acquired and reorganized by Fujiwara-sensei into a new medical group."
"Genesis…?" Shiraishi Rina frowned—then her expression loosened.
She had heard about it.
Tohto Medical's bankruptcy had caused a massive shock through the industry.
"Genesis Medical hopes to hire you," Megumi continued.
"Really?"
Shiraishi Rina opened one of the folders, still skeptical.
After one glance, her pupils contracted sharply.
Inside were emails documenting Professor Ueda's Secret deal with an overseas pharmaceutical company—bank transfer records—evidence of him bribing review committee members—and audio transcripts and text records of every time he'd suppressed her work…
An ironclad file that could destroy him completely and send him to prison.
"This… this is…" Shiraishi Rina grabbed the documents so hard her knuckles turned white.
"This is Genesis Medical's sincerity," Megumi said with a soft smile. "And it's the accumulated fire of revenge—from everyone who's been squeezed dry by Professor Ueda, just like you."
"Revenge…" Shiraishi Rina whispered, stunned.
Then she flipped open the second folder.
A researcher employment contract.
And a planning blueprint labeled "Genesis Medical Laboratory."
"This is the stage Fujiwara-sensei prepared for you," Megumi said.
"He…" Shiraishi Rina asked the real question at last, wariness and desire flashing in her eyes. "What does he want?"
Megumi met her gaze evenly. "Fujiwara-sensei said the concept of 'induced immune cell regeneration' proves your talent. He's willing to invest in your future."
Shiraishi Rina stared at the evidence she'd dreamed of but could never obtain… then at the contract that felt like it had fallen from heaven.
In her dead, exhausted eyes, something reignited—something called revenge, and ambition.
"Is that so? Then… please take care of me, Genesis Medical."
Shiraishi Rina stood and bowed deeply to Megumi.
In an underground archive belonging to the Japanese pharmaceutical company "Takeda Pharmaceutical."
Satou Kengo—a genius pharmacist who once shocked the entire R&D department with his "crazy ideas"—stood in a white lab coat, numb as he stamped "VOID" onto stacks of expired drug data archives.
Each stamp fell with a dull thump, thump, like a funeral bell for his dead talent.
"Mr. Satou."
Megumi appeared in front of him as well, folders in hand.
"No unauthorized personnel," Satou Kengo said without looking up, voice drained. "If you don't leave, I'm calling the cops."
Megumi didn't answer.
She simply slapped a file down onto the moldy stack in front of him with a loud bang.
"The hell are you—" Satou Kengo lifted his head in irritation… and then froze.
A list.
One that stole his breath in an instant.
[Ultra-High-Throughput DNA Sequencer – Illumina NovaSeq X Plus]
[Automated High-Content Imaging Analysis System – Thermo Fisher CellInsight CX7]
[AI Drug Discovery Platform – Schrödinger Suite Full License]
Satou Kengo went rigid.
He snatched the list up, his dust-covered fingers trembling as he traced each piece of equipment by name, one by one.
"No way… this is fake… this can't be real…"
"This machine—there's only one in all of Japan, and RIKEN has it…"
Megumi chose that moment to speak. "Fujiwara-sensei said every piece of equipment on this list will be in place within a week. And you will be the chief pharmacist of the 'Genesis Medical Laboratory,' with veto power over every R&D project."
"Those ideas of yours that people called 'delusional'—here, they can all be made real."
"Fujiwara-sensei… and Genesis Medical?"
Satou Kengo jerked his head up. The dullness in his eyes—born from years of wasted potential—burst into something wild.
"Yeah." Megumi nodded slowly. "It's the Fujiwara-sensei you're thinking of. And it's that Genesis Medical."
That one sentence lit Satou Kengo on fire.
At first he laughed under his breath—then louder, louder—until it became a hoarse, uncontrollable roar echoing through the underground archive.
And somewhere in the middle of it, tears slid down his face.
"This is… amazing!"
Satou Kengo stood straight and asked seriously, "When can I start?"
A few weeks later, at Genesis International Medical Center.
In the hospital boardroom, the atmosphere was heavy.
Several newly promoted executives watched a massive screen showing an ultra-high-difficulty off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery, performed by Mishima Tsukiki as lead surgeon—transferred over from the University of Tokyo Hospital.
"That anastomosis is unbelievable!" An elderly professor with graying hair—himself a famous cardiothoracic surgeon—stared in awe. "On a heart beating seventy times a minute… his hands didn't tremble even once!"
"Director Tanaka," said Executive Suzuki from finance, pushing up his glasses as he looked at the professor, his voice filled with both reverence and confusion, "Fujiwara-san approved a three-hundred-million annual salary for him in the contract, but he voluntarily asked to cut it in half. Do you know what he told legal?"
"He said, 'Before I create value worth ten times my price for sir, I only deserve half the salary.'"
"And with the other half, he founded a 'Seiji Young Physician Training Program,' swearing to cultivate a completely loyal white corps for sir."
"The University of Tokyo Hospital is panicking," another executive added, still shaken. "Their director called me three times personally. Offered five hundred million under the table to steal him back, and promised him a vice-director position. And what happened? Doctor Mishima didn't even pick up the phone."
They exchanged looks—each of them seeing the same fear and relief in the others' eyes.
Where in the world did Boss Fujiwara dig up someone this skilled… and this loyal?
At the same time, on the other end, the acting head of "Genesis Medical Laboratory" was giving Seiji a video report.
The top-tier manager poached from MIT looked almost overwhelmed.
"Sir! Doctor Shiraishi and Doctor Satou are basically machines!"
"They voluntarily gave up all time off and have the team running twenty-four-hour shifts!"
"In just three weeks, Doctor Shiraishi's team successfully induced Type I regenerative immune cells—three whole months ahead of schedule!"
"And Doctor Satou submitted an 'All-Drug AI Development Matrix' plan. Once the model is built, it'll cut new drug R&D time by at least half!"
Seiji listened, smiling quietly.
Mishima Tsukiki's resignation paperwork was processed fast.
Once everything was confirmed, he went back to his office to pack up his personal belongings.
As he walked through the halls, everyone stopped to stare.
The man who used to be a failure now looked like a king returning to his throne.
Director Imada rushed out the moment he heard, a fake smile plastered on his face. "Oh, Mishima-kun! So lucky, getting Fujiwara-sensei's attention! But you know, there will always be a place for you here—"
Mishima didn't even look at him.
He walked straight up and tossed a document into Director Imada's face.
Smack!
Just like how Director Imada once threw Mishima's surgical proposal at him.
"You—!" Imada's face turned the color of liver in an instant.
Then Kobayashi pushed his way out of the crowd, clutching a resume as he begged desperately, "Mishima-senpai! Please—look at my resume! I'm the one you brought in! Take me with you—get me out of here!"
Going to a hospital in Tokyo had to be better than rotting in this place.
"Oh, yeah?"
Mishima Tsukiki gave a cold laugh. Expressionless, he took the resume—and right in front of everyone, fed it into the shredder beside him.
The vicious grinding whine filled the silent lobby, like a public execution.
"M-Mishima-senpai…?" Kobayashi stared, utterly disbelieving.
Was this really the same honest, meek Doctor Mishima?
The twisted faces of Director Imada and the young junior—shock, jealousy, regret, fear, all tangled together—were the best farewell gift Mishima Tsukiki could have asked for.
That night, in a new apartment in central Tokyo, his wife Yuko leaned into his arms, staring at this dreamlike reality with eyes shining—happy, and still unable to believe it.
"I always knew you were the best," she said, gently smoothing the furrow that was finally gone from his brow, her voice shaking. "I was just afraid the world would never see it."
Mishima squeezed her hand, calm and resolute.
"Yuko. From now on, I won't let you suffer even a little."
Elsewhere.
At Haneoka Girls' Academy, in the hallway after school—
Takamatsu Tomori kept her head down, like a timid hamster, carefully weaving through the crowd, doing everything she could to shrink her presence as small as possible.